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The structural, magnetic, ferroelectric, dielectric, magneto-dielectric and optical properties of W/Co co-substituted tungsten bronze Ba4Sm2Fe2Nb8-3x(W2Co)xO30 (0 ≤ x ≤ 0.3) ceramics were studied in detail. All the samples can be indexed with the tetragonal structure with the space group of P4bm. The room-temperature ferromagnetism with rather high ferromagnetic Curie temperature Tc was obtained in all compositions. The co-doping of W/Co ions obviously optimized the ferromagnetism and ferroelectricity. The composition x = 0.2 showed a superior multiferroicity with the remnant magnetization Mr of 0.15 emu/g and the remnant polarization Pr of 2.1μC/cm2 as well as the Tc of 886 K. The low-temperature relaxation was related to the thermal process of oxygen vacancies, while the another one around 300 K was ascribed to the localized hopping of electrons. The relative increment of magneto-dielectric constant (MDC) obeyed with the square term of magnetization in Ginzburg-Landau theory, implying the existence of intrinsic magneto-electric coupling effect. A relatively large MDC of 0.17 % was achieved in pure sample. In addition, two direct inter-band transitions with the narrow band gaps of ∼2.0 eV and ∼2.5 eV were demonstrated.

Background: Docetaxel (DCT) is widely used in clinical practice, but the drug resistance of breast cancer patients has become an important reason to limit its clinical efficacy. Chan’su is a commonly used traditional Chinese medicine for the treatment of breast cancer. Bufalin (BUF) is a bioactive polyhydroxy steroid extracted from chan’su and has strong antitumor activity, but there are few studies on reversing drug resistance in breast cancer. The aim of this study is to determine whether BUF can reverse the drug resistance to DCT and restore efficacy in breast cancer. Methodology: The reversal index of BUF was detected by Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK-8) assays. The effects of BUF on enhancing the apoptosis of DCT were detected by flow cytometry and Western Blot (WB), and the main differential expression levels of sensitive and resistant strains were detected by high-throughput sequencing. Rhodamine 123 assay, WB and ATP Binding Cassette Subfamily B Member 1 (ABCB1) ATPase activity experiments were used to detect the effect of BUF on ABCB1. The nude mouse orthotopic model was constructed to investigate the reversal effect of BUF on DCT resistance in vivo. Results: With BUF intervention, the sensitivity of drug-resistant cell lines to DCT was increased. BUF can inhibit the expression of ABCB1 protein, increase the drug accumulation of DCT in drug-resistant strains, and reduce the ATPase activity of ABCB1. Animal experiments show that BUF can inhibit the growth of drug-resistant tumors in an orthotopic model of breast cancer and decrease the expression of ABCB1. Conclusion: BUF can reverse ABCB1-mediated docetaxel resistance in breast cancer.

Mental health issues can lead to serious consequences like depression, self-mutilation, and worse, especially for university students who are not physically and mentally mature. Not all students with poor mental health are aware of their situation and actively seek help. Proactive detection of mental problems is a critical step in addressing this issue. However, accurate detections are hard to achieve due to the inherent complexity and heterogeneity of unstructured multi-modal data generated by campus life. Against this background, we propose a detection framework for detecting students’ mental health, named CASTLE (educational data fusion for mental health detection). Three parts are involved in this framework. First, we utilize representation learning to fuse data on social life, academic performance, and physical appearance. An algorithm, named MOON (multi-view social network embedding), is proposed to represent students’ social life in a comprehensive way by fusing students’ heterogeneous social relations effectively. Second, a synthetic minority oversampling technique algorithm (SMOTE) is applied to the label imbalance issue. Finally, a DNN (deep neural network) model is utilized for the final detection. The extensive results demonstrate the promising performance of the proposed methods in comparison to an extensive range of state-of-the-art baselines.

Pheromones play a vital role in regulating fish behavior, including reproduction, aggregation, hazard recognition and food location. To gain a better understanding of chemical communication in fish produced by density changes, this study analyzed the metabolites released by turbot (Scophthalmus maximus) under different stocking densities. The experiment was conducted at low (LD: 3.01 kg/m2), medium (MD: 6.62 kg/m2) and high (HD: 10.84 kg/m2) densities for 15 days. High-throughput non-targeted metabolomics (LC-MS/MS) was used to identify variations in metabolites released into the aquatic environment by turbot at different densities. Results showed that 29 and 47 metabolites were significantly upregulated in the MD and HD groups, respectively, compared with the LD group. Among them, hexadecanedioic acid, xanthine, phenethylamine, proline and styrene were significantly upregulated in the MD vs. LD, HD vs. MD and HD vs. LD. The VIP diagram of OPLS-DA alignment showed that phenethylamine was the most important metabolite shared by MD vs. LD, HD vs. MD and HD vs. LD. Key gene changes in the GH/IGF-1 signaling pathway, HPI axis of turbot were studied using qRT-PCR for density treatment. The results demonstrated that the expression of GH, GHR and IGF-1 was significantly lower, while the expression of CRH and ACTH was higher in the HD group. Additionally, plasma levels of cortisol, glucose, triglycerides and T3 were also highest in the HD group compared with the LD and MD groups. Phenylethylamine concentration was positively correlated with the HPI axis and negatively correlated with the GH/IGF-1 signaling pathway. To investigate the impact of phenethylamine accumulation on turbot, an acute treatment experiment with phenethylamine was set up. Its concentration in the aquatic environment was set at 0 (CON), 10−7 (LP) and 10−5 (HP) mol/L via exogenous addition, and turbot were exposed to these environments for 2 days. There was a high degree of concordance between the GH/IGF-1 signaling pathway (GH, GHR, IGF-1), HPI axis (CRH, ACTH) and plasma physiological changes (cortisol, glucose, triglycerides, T3) in the phenethylamine-treated group and the density-treated group. Therefore, accumulation of phenethylamine with increasing stocking density may be a potential cause of density stress. Phenylethylamine has a dose-dependent and trace effect as a pheromone.

Non-thermal plasma (NTP) technology has great potential to treat volatile organic compounds (VOCs) at low concentrations and large volumes. In this work, toluene, one of the most stable VOCs, was employed as a model pollutant to study its degradation by double dielectric barrier discharge (DDBD) at ambient temperature and atmospheric pressure. The performance of the DDBD reactor was evaluated in terms of discharge power, removal efficiency, COx selectivity, and byproduct formation. Online and continuous measurements by PTR-TOFMS showed that toluene degradation resulted in the formation of 12 major volatile organic byproducts as well as 7 minor ones with concentrations ranging from ppbv to ppmv. Moreover, the particle size distribution and number concentration of particles formed during toluene degradation were measured using a scanning mobility particle sizer, and the effects of discharge power, initial toluene concentration, gas flow rate and O2 content on particle formation were systematically investigated. The results show that both NTP-induced polymerization and oxidation contribute to aerosol formation, and the total concentration of organic byproducts in the aerosol phase is about 107 cm−3 with diameters in the range of 10 and 100 nm. This pioneered investigation on gas- and particle-phase organic byproducts from toluene degradation by NTP would deepen the understanding of plasma degradation of VOCs and accelerate the practical application of NTP for VOCs treatment.

Sebastes schlegelii is a commercially important fishery resource that is also a representative viviparous fish species in the Northeast Asian Sea. The mode of nutritional supply of embryos fertilized and developed in vivo is not clear. To screen biomarkers for nutrient transfer between mother and embryo, we studied the composition of and changes in maternal plasma at different developmental stages. The results showed that the plasma of S. schlegelii was rich in nutrients, including 16 hydrolysed amino acids, 20 fatty acids, glucose and fructose. The contents of amino acids in the plasma reached 3.44-4.58 g/100 g, which is approximately 3-5 times that of fatty acids and 44-155 times that of sugar. Thirteen amino acids, 15 fatty acids and glucose showed an increasing trend in the early stage of embryonic development and a decreasing trend in the later stage. The contents of leucine, as an essential amino acid in early development, changed significantly in maternal blood and was therefore selected as a biomarker. The results of isotope labelling showed that 15N leucine was not detected in the eggs, gastrula embryos or organogenesis embryos, but a high abundance of 14N leucine was detected in the eggs and embryos of the control and experimental groups, indicating that leucine, an essential amino acid for aquatic animals, plays an important role in gamete and embryo development. An abundance in 15N-labelled leucine was detected in the embryonic blood and ovarian villi but not in the embryos, which indicates that the ample free naturally abundant leucine in maternal blood during the middle and late developmental stages of the eggs and embryos was not absorbed or utilized. These results showed that eggs and embryos had certain autonomy and selectivity when absorbing nutrients and gave priority to the active transport of certain complex macromolecular nutrients that could meet their needs for a variety of nutrients at the same time.

This study was designed to explore the impact of the photoperiod on the gonadal development and somatic growth of Atlantic salmon raised in recirculating aquaculture systems (RASs), with specific focus on the role that microRNA (miR)-155 plays as a regulator in the Atlantic salmon’s photoperiodic reproduction. These salmon were reared for 5 months under six different photoperiod regimens, including two with changing photoperiods (LL–SL = 24L:0D–8L:16D and SL–LL = 8L:16D–24L:0D) and four with constant photoperiods (24L:0D, 18L:6D, 12L:12D, and 8L:16D). The longer photoperiod groups (LL–SL and 24L:0D) were ultimately associated with higher gonadosomatic index (GSI) values and an increased proportion of mature fish relative to other exposure groups, indicating that the photoperiod positively impacted the Atlantic salmon’s gonadal development in RAS environments. Hypothalamic miR-155 expression in these Atlantic salmon was also found to be influenced by the photoperiod, showing a markedly decreased expression in salmon exposed to a long photoperiod and upregulation following rearing under a short photoperiod. Functionally, miR-155 was found to suppress the expression of gonadal axis-related genes, including FSH and GnRH, through its ability to target the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and to thereby regulate photoperiod reproduction. Overall, these results suggested that the photoperiod could regulate gonad development in Atlantic salmon with miRNA-155 being involved in this process by targeting the BDNF.

To overcome the poor water solubility of total flavones of Arisaematis rhizoma, microemulsions (MEs) can be used as a carrier for transdermal administration to promote their solubilization and skin permeability. Here, we investigated the physical compatibility of MEs in hydrogels and their skin permeation-enhancing effects. Transparency of microemulsion-based hydrogels (MBGs) was analyzed to evaluate ME compatibility with different hydrogel matrices. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy were used to explore the microstructures of MBGs and ME–hydrogel combinations. Uniform and transparent MBG was obtained by adding 1% sodium hyaluronate (SH) to the optimized ME. MBG prepared with SH as a matrix expressed pseudoplastic-fluid and shear-thinning characteristics, making it easy to apply in clinical settings. No new FTIR peak occurred in the MBG compared with ME and hydrogel matrix, indicating a physical combination of ME and the polymer network gel. Nanoscale droplets of ME migrated in the gel network, and the migration capacity and in vitro transdermal permeation flux negatively correlated with SH concentration in the gel system. In conclusion, in MBGs, ME can keep nanoscale droplets migrating in the hydrogel network, thereby enhancing transdermal drug delivery.

Abstract The present study investigates the nature of the spelling-to-sound correspondences taught to enhance phonemic awareness in prereaders. The main assumption in the literature is that learning the alphabetic code through letter-to-phoneme correspondences is the best way to improve phonemic awareness. The alternative syllabic bridge hypothesis, based on the saliency and early availability of syllables, assumes that learning to associate letters to phonological syllables enables phoneme units to be the mirror of the letters and to become accessible, thereby developing phonemic awareness of prereaders. A total of 222 French-speaking prereaders took part in a 4-session learning program based on correspondences either between letters and syllables (letters-to-syllable group) or between letters and phonemes (letter-to-phoneme group), and the fifth last session on coding and decoding. Our results showed a greater increase in phonemic awareness in the letters-to-syllable group than in the letter-to-phoneme group. The present study suggests that teaching prereaders letters-to-syllable correspondences is a key to successful reading.

Anomalies in education affect the personal careers of students and universities' retention rates. Understanding the laws behind educational anomalies promotes the development of individual students and improves the overall quality of education. However, the inaccessibility of educational data hinders the development of the field. Previous research in this field used questionnaires, which are time- and cost-consuming and hardly applicable to large-scale student cohorts. With the popularity of educational management systems and the rise of online education during the prevalence of COVID-19, a large amount of educational data is available online and offline, providing an unprecedented opportunity to explore educational anomalies from a data-driven perspective. As an emerging field, educational anomaly analytics rapidly attracts scholars from a variety of fields, including education, psychology, sociology, and computer science. This paper intends to provide a comprehensive review of data-driven analytics of educational anomalies from a methodological standpoint. We focus on the following five types of research that received the most attention: course failure prediction, dropout prediction, mental health problems detection, prediction of difficulty in graduation, and prediction of difficulty in employment. Then, we discuss the challenges of current related research. This study aims to provide references for educational policymaking while promoting the development of educational anomaly analytics as a growing field.

Quantifying success in science plays a key role in guiding funding allocations, recruitment decisions, and rewards. Recently, a significant amount of progresses have been made towards quantifying success in science. This lack of detailed analysis and summary continues a practical issue. The literature reports the factors influencing scholarly impact and evaluation methods and indices aimed at overcoming this crucial weakness. We focus on categorizing and reviewing the current development on evaluation indices of scholarly impact, including paper impact, scholar impact, and journal impact. Besides, we summarize the issues of existing evaluation methods and indices, investigate the open issues and challenges, and provide possible solutions, including the pattern of collaboration impact, unified evaluation standards, implicit success factor mining, dynamic academic network embedding, and scholarly impact inflation. This paper should help the researchers obtaining a broader understanding of quantifying success in science, and identifying some potential research directions.

Ultrathin wearing course (UTWC) has been widely applied in both asphalt pavements preventive maintenance and functional overlay. This study’s objective is to evaluate the influence of different modified asphalt binders with warm mix additives on the skid resistance of UTWC and to reveal the attenuation law of skid resistance of UTWC. Three types of modified asphalt binders (Styrene-Butadiene-Styrene- (SBS-) modified asphalt, Acrylester Rubber- (AR-) modified asphalt, and SinoTPS-modified asphalt) and sasobit warm mix asphalt additive were selected to prepare asphalt mixtures. The Model Mobile Load Simulator 3 (MMLS3) was used to simulate repeated vehicle loading and abrasion. The British Pendulum Number (BPN) and Mean Texture Depth (MTD) were chosen to evaluate the skid resistance of the UTWC. The Analysis of Range (ANOR) and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) were used to verify the significance of asphalt binder on the antiskid performance of the UTWC. ANOR and ANOVA show that the influence of different modified asphalt binders on the skid resistance of the UTWC is significant. The SinoTPS modified asphalt mixture can maintain high texture roughness before and after abrasion, providing excellent and durable skid resistance. The influence of the addition of a warm mixing additive on the skid resistance of UTWC is not significant, and changes in microtexture mainly reflect its impact on antiskid performance. The decay curve of three modified asphalt binders of the skid resistance of the UTWC can be well fitted into an exponential function. The conclusion will play an essential role in selecting the asphalt binder in a UTWC to improve the antiskid performance.

Edge computing is a product of the evolution of IoT and the development of cloud computing technology, providing computing, storage, network, and other infrastructure close to users. Compared with the centralized deployment model of traditional cloud computing, edge computing solves the problems of extended communication time and high convergence traffic, providing better support for low latency and high bandwidth services. With the increasing amount of data generated by users and devices in IoT, security and privacy issues in the edge computing environment have become concerns. Blockchain, a security technology developed rapidly in recent years, has been adopted by many industries, such as finance and insurance. With the edge computing capability, deploying blockchain platforms/applications on edge computing platforms can provide security services for network edge environments. Although there are already solutions for integrating edge computing with blockchain in many IoT application scenarios, they slightly lack scalability, portability, and heterogeneous data processing. In this paper, we propose a trusted edge platform to integrate the edge computing framework and blockchain network for building an edge security environment. The proposed platform aims to preserve the data privacy of the edge computing client. The design based on the microservice architecture makes the platform lighter. To improve the portability of the platform, we introduce the Edgex Foundry framework and design an edge application module on the platform to improve the business capability of Edgex. Simultaneously, we designed a series of well-defined security authentication microservices. These microservices use the Hyperledger Fabric blockchain network to build a reliable security mechanism in the edge environment. Finally, we build an edge computing network using different hardware devices and deploy the trusted edge platform on multiple network nodes. The usability of the proposed platform is demonstrated by testing the round-trip time (RTT) of several important workflows. The experimental results demonstrate that the platform can meet the availability requirements in real-world usage scenarios.

An optical fiber Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI) based on poly (ethyleneimine) (PEI)/ poly (vinyl alcohol) (PVA) blend membrane is proposed and realized experimentally as a sensor for the pressure of CO2 in the atmosphere. The functional material layer based on PEI/PVA blend polymer exhibits reversible optical path difference change because of absorption and release of CO2 gas molecules. The cavity of the FPI is fabricated by coating a 15-μm PEI/PVA blend film on the end-face of a cleaved single-mode fiber. An interference spectrum with fringe contrast of 19.5 dB and free spectra range of 33.15 nm is obtained. The proposed FPI sensor is sensitive to the changes of concentration of CO2, as well as a sensitivity of 0.281 nm/% within an interval which ranges from 7.6% to 86.9%.

Considering the importance of pedestrian detection in a variety of applications such as advanced robots and intelligent surveillance systems, this paper presents an improved pedestrian detection method through integrating Haar-like features, AdaBoost algorithm, histogram of oriented gradients (HOG) descriptor, and support vector machine (SVM) classifiers, in which the head and shoulder information is utilized especially. Due to the fast training speed of Haar-like features and the high detection efficiency of HOG features, the proposed method can classify pedestrians precisely with higher speed. Experimental results validated the efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.

Train operation control system is the core of urban rail transit system, and the train carborne control system is an important part of the whole train operation control systems, and its reliability will directly affect the safety of the train. In this paper, two out of three closed-loop dynamic input detection technology and hardware dynamic two out of two voting output technology and time synchronization technology were used to design relay node status acquisition and control scheme of the train carborne control system respectively, and effectively guaranteed the reliability of relay node status acquisition and control of the train carborne control system and therefore ensure the safety of operation of the train.